‘Senior military leaders are too distracted, too bureaucratic, and too online.’
A new veteran-led national-security advocacy group is taking aim at “woke” cultural trends within the military and urging a tougher U.S. defense posture toward America’s adversaries.
That group, Veterans on Duty, plans to brief political candidates on defense issues and to serve a watchdog function regarding bureaucratic bloat within the Pentagon.
“America’s military is still the best in the world,” said Jason Church, the group’s chairman, in a statement. “But if we want to ensure that remains the case, drastic institutional reforms are needed. Nowadays it seems senior military leaders are too distracted, too bureaucratic, and too online.”
“Politics have taken precedence over the mastery of warfighting. VOD will be the tip of the spear in advocating for long-overdue reforms,” added Church, a Purple Heart recipient who served in Afghanistan.
The new group’s launch yesterday comes amid longstanding controversy surrounding the Pentagon’s promotion of progressive narratives about identity and equity. Those clashes have pitted top military officers against conservative lawmakers who warn that the adoption of such perspectives are weakening America’s military preparedness.
Church wrote in a New York Post piece announcing the new group that its goal is “to compel the military to get back to basics by exposing how the woke revolution in the services works and how policymakers can defeat it.” He specifically cited military trainings about transgenderism, the inclusion of works by Ibram X. Kendi on military curricula, and the Navy’s production of videos on gender pronouns.
But Veterans on Duty won’t only be taking on the military bureaucracy.
Soon after that piece was published yesterday, a progressive veterans group, VoteVets, took aim at Church, accusing him of “grifting.”
“Diversity is strength,” VoteVets wrote on its official twitter account. “Allowing ALL who are able to serve, serve, makes our military stronger and us more safe.”
Calling people racists doesn’t work anymore. Looking forward to the fight @votevets. pic.twitter.com/G0QgITN84I
— Jason Church (@JasonChurchWI) July 19, 2022
Church fired back: “Calling people racists doesn’t work anymore. Looking forward to the fight.”
In his op-ed, Church also warned about the threats from Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, warning that wokeness is corroding the military’s ability to fight “at a moment of growing peril from overseas.”
The Veterans on Duty advisory board currently includes Jeremy Hunt, a former U.S. army intelligence officer who ran in the Georgia Second Congressional District GOP primary this year. Church also ran for Congress, during a special election for Wisconsin’s Seventh Congressional district in 2020.
The launch of Veterans on Duty comes to the backdrop of growing concern about the preparedness of America’s all-volunteer force. Last month, it was revealed that the military is severely behind its recruiting goals. A top Marine officer told Congress that this year is “arguably the most challenging recruiting year since the inception of the all-volunteer force.”